Could be so.
I have seen customers buying large quantities of sugary drinks. Many of them are on the over weight side also.

I saw a list of the dishes for a recently executed woman's last meal; she got a burger, fries, chocolate milk shake, KFC chicken w/ all the trimmings...I forget what-all, but she also wanted a Diet Coke. That just struck me as surreal.

People would flip out if they knew how much sugar was in a 12 oz. soda; there's 39 grams or the equiv. of 9.34 teaspoons. They use high fructose corn syrup, but it's pretty much all the same to your body. I think there's even more in some of those energy drinks and I know Mountain Dew has more grams of sugar in it.   I swore off sugar sodas over ten yrs. ago and drink a diet soda now 'n then, but to hear the slams on it, it's causing more harm than the sugar is. I doubt that.

I found a book "Sugar Blues" about 30 yrs. ago and it changed my life...at least for a while. I quit drinking sodas, cut out sweets and tried to eliminate ANYTHING that had added sugar to it. It was a horrible withdrawal though, much worse than quitting smoking (and cigarettes have sugar in them, too!) I did feel better and one day I decided to have an orange and that nearly knocked me out.

I eventually gave up my nearly sugar-free diet b/c it was nearly impossible to keep to and also found out that no matter what you eat, it turns into sugar in your body and we NEED that conversion. I still try to watch my sugar intake, though.

The culprit is high fructose corn syrup. I have read that this sugar substitute is more addictive than heroin. Cereals, cheap breads, most sweets contain it.

Aye, too many medical studies, to list, officially support the premise!